Del. Hamilton Says He Did Everything Asked

September 19, 2009|By Kimball Payne, kpayne@dailypress.com 247-4765

Del. Phil Hamilton said Friday that investigators from Old Dominion University never asked him for any information during the university audit of his two years of work for an off-campus teacher-training center.

Hamilton resigned from his $40,000-a-year position at the Center for Teacher Quality and Educational Leadership amid concerns that a university should not employ a powerful state lawmaker who helped get the center $500,000 a year in state funding.

E-mails obtained by the Daily Press showed that Hamilton was negotiating the terms of the job before he sought funding for it in the General Assembly, and the university's investigation found "little available documentation to reconstruct his activities over the past two years."

But Hamilton said Friday that investigators never asked him directly what he did for the center, noting that ODU officials described him as a "very valuable resource" when his job first became an issue.

"The lack of documentation on ODU's part has been portrayed as proof that I wasn't doing my job, and that's not fair," Hamilton said in an interview with the Daily Press. "I basically did whatever Old Dominion asked me to do."

Hamilton's job with Old Dominion University is now the subject of a House of Delegates ethics inquiry and a federal grand jury investigation. The longtime Newport News Republican is also working on his first re-election campaign in more than a decade, taking on Newport News Democrat Robin Abbot.

After three decades as a teacher and administrator in Newport News Public Schools, Hamilton retired in 2002 and became a part-time employee. Hamilton said his retired status means he is required to work less than 50 percent of the hours of a full-time staffer - the equivalent of about 960 hours a year.

He said that although Newport News officials did not require him to complete a time card, he did anyway.

"I did that on my own," he said. "Neither organization has ever said to me, 'You are not doing your job.' "

Hamilton's job description with Old Dominion University required him to work to secure more funding for the center and focus on ways to beef up efforts for public school teachers and administrators to continue their professional education.

Hamilton said he organized six two-day advanced leadership training courses for more than 240 Newport News administrators during the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008 for the Center for Teacher Quality and Educational Leadership.

"That's never happened before," he said. "The great bulk of the work that I was doing for ODU was related to Newport News."

Hamilton also said he helped to promote the center when meeting with superintendents and other education experts at regional teacher conferences and events.

While Hamilton said he didn't write any grant proposals, ODU officials frequently bounced ideas off him when they were preparing to go after pools of education funding.

"A lot of my communication with them was about ideas and concepts," Hamilton said.

Hamilton said a leadership academy for teachers that he formed in Newport News Public Schools became the model for one of ODU's successful grant proposals.

Hamilton also stressed that the ODU audit found no evidence that he and university officials entered into a quid pro quo.

"There was not evidence that my support for the center was contingent on a job," Hamilton said. "That's what I've said all along."

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